Sunder
by MostDismalFeldsparkle
Summary: Amid sundered leaves, beneath ancient trees, we wander...


The forest was ancient. This much was evident to them all. More evident even than the leaves stained orange by an alien photosynthesising pigment, evolved under an alien sun. More evident than the shrill alien screams of whatever manner of fowl or beast lived in them. These orange trees just could not be young. They were too large, too gnarled, too heavily rooted. Imagining them to be young was beyond them.

Nothing grew at the feet of these giants, for they stole almost all the light high above. There was no sustenance down here among the roots but the spent leaves of past seasons, and these were piled thickly, their consumption apparently to great a task for the segmented crawlers of the leaf litter.

"Nice trees," a man said tensely, insincerely. "Big."

"Yeah," replied the other. "Damn big."

"Old."

"Yeah."

The shorter of the two frowned at the canopy a hundred meters above. It was shady to the point of darkness where they stood, chilly, but on the other side of the orange leave, that alien sun blazed. "Why aren't there any dead ones?"

The other started. "What? Dead what?"

"Dead _TREES_. You know...fallen trunks. Shouldn't there be..."

The other sighed impatiently. "There probably are elsewhere, just cause we can't see one..."

"... _HAVEN'T_ seen one you mean. We've been walking for hours. Have you seen a single..."

"I've got no goddamn idea! I've been scanning for Trillium deposits, not firewood. What is _WITH_ you anyway? I thought you were jumpy about lakes and stuff, not forests."

"But it IS odd, don't you think?", persisted the first. "Not a single fallen trunk. How can that be?"

A loud growl of exasperation echoed through the trunks. "Oh I don't know. They probably rot away quickly. Eaten by, ya'know... detritivores, that's it...bacteria, fungi, nematodes and that."

The smaller man stopped, looked his companion in the eye. "I've just remembered something. You took a basic biology course."

"I did?"

"Yes, yes! I'm sure."

The taller one shrugged. "If you say so. I'm just trying to stay focused remembering the name of..."

"... R. Pagano. That's what his uniform said."

"Right. Pagans. Bobby Pagano. I'm trying to remember that and that we are looking for Trellium..."

"Trillium."

"What?"

"Just now you said ' _Trellium_ ' but a moment ago you said ' _Trillium_ '."

The taller one scowled, knuckles whitening on a clenched hand. "Right."

"So which is it?" The other insisted. "Is it 'Trellium' or 'Trillium', and which ever it is how are we bloody well supposed to find it?"

"I'll know it when I see it."

"Will you though? What does it look like?"

"Would you just _SHUT UP_?"

The shorter one stopped short, and glared back, his lips slightly pursed. "Well I would, but answer me this. Those detritivores? The bacteria, fungi, the nematodes? The ones that are eating the tree trunks?"

"What about them?"

"Why aren't they eating the leaves?" He punctuated the statement by kicking back the leaves at his feet. Those buried deep beneath were no more decomposed than those above them.

The taller man stared at the exposed leaves, looking for a moment like he might speak, but then shook his head and continued walking without another word, without looking back to see if his companion was following.

The other did follow after a minute or so, somehow moving much more quietly through the piled leaves, despite going faster. When he caught up, he fell into step, and they walked in silence for a while.

Eventually the taller one broke the silence. "Why do you care so much about the fallen trees anyway? I can't remember what you do exactly, but I'm pretty sure you are no sort of ecologist."

"I could be an ecologist," the other replied moodily. "You've no reason to believe that I'm not an ecologist. I'VE no reason to believe I'm not an ecologist. For all either of us know, I'm a very accomplished ecologist."

The taller man smirked and shook his head. "Do _YOU_ think you're an ecologist?"

"Not particularly."

"Before, when I said that thing about firewood. I think it was because you are the kind of person who might have been looking for firewood. Planning ahead, ya'know?"

The shorter of the two shook his head. "Not planning ahead, no. Although it's not the worst idea. It might get cold at night, although equally I suppose that canopy might trap a lot of head and it won't get cold. Although, presumably in that case we can expect more active local fauna so we might want the fire to scare them off. Although, perhaps the light and heat would end up ATTRACTING the local wildlife, in which case we should have do what I suggested before and go back to the... _thingamy_. The... _thing_."

The taller one shook his head. "Can't go back yet. We need to get the Trellium."

" _Trillium_ and why?"

"Because the others are counting on us."

"What others?" The shorter one shouted drawing to a halt once again. "R. Pagano is dead and buried under these bloody zombie leaves, under these bloody haunted trees, and neither I NOR you have any reason to believe there ARE any others. So unless you've remembered something we should give up this pointless hunt for Trillium or Trellium or whatever bloody thing and go back to the...thingy...the metal thing...the POD, that's it. We should go back to the pod while there is still time."

The other shook his head. "Not without the Trellium."

"You don't even know what you are looking for!"

"It might fix us! Have you thought of that? Maybe if we find it well be able to remember who we are and how to fix the...'pod' was it? And get back to..."

"Get back to where? How do you know there IS anything else?"

The taller man shook his head. "I don't know. But there's somewhere. I can't quite remember it. But it's silver, and grey and there are people, and there aren't goddamn leaves everywhere, and..."

"And what?"

"And it sings."

* * *

Archer paced. "How long now?"

T'Pol considered.

The pause was long enough to irritate Archer but the reply came just before his temper snapped.

"The EM wave front continues to disperse as predicted. We should be able to safely pass through it in order to return to the planet in two hours, allowing us to arrive in orbit in approximately 155 minutes. If our pod is ready to launch, it might arrive on the surface at their last known location 45 minutes after that."

Archer nodded grimly. "We should have used the transport to bring them up before we evacuated the system."

T'Pol frowned. "That would have been highly inadvisable. The ambient radiation of the planet would have affected their cell membranes such that use of the transporter would likely have been lethal."

"At least Pagano would have had a chance," Archer muttered, then turned to Phlox, dissipating optimism still on his face. "Are we quite sure Pagano would have died? Maybe..."

"I do not see how, Captain," Phlox interrupted grimly, but firmly, his tone hushed so as not to carry across the bridge. No formal announcement about the loss of Pagano had been made. The young man had a fiancé on board. Friends. "The EM pulse wave would certainly have destroyed his artificial heart, just as it no doubt destroyed the shuttlepod's systems. Even if the others had attempted cardiopulmonary resuscitation there is no way they could have maintained effective circulation for over twelve hours."

Archer yet felt unwilling to give up. "Perhaps Trip fixed it?", he all but pleaded. "He is an Engineer. Never met a gadget he couldn't fix..."

"With every scanner and tool they had with them rendered useless by the pulse? In the few minutes before permanent brain death occurred?" Phlox replied, his sonorous tone withering all hope even more so than his words. "In any case the could not have done so without removing Pagano's radiation suit, in which case the point would be moot.

Optimism thus defeated, Archer slumped back into his chair. "We should have recalled the Shuttlepod, fled the system at warp."

"The risk would have been unacceptable," T'Pol broke in sharply. "If that EM pulse had reached _Enterprise_ then we'd have been dead in space. The whole crew would have suffocated before help arrived, even assuming we'd have been able to call for help. Ensign Pagano was dead the moment the star ejected that wave. You did not fail by saving the rest of us."

Archer sighed. "I haven't saved the rest of us yet. There's still Trip and Malcolm to recover. And we still need that Trillium ore."

"We are doing everything we can, Captain."

"But will it be enough?"

Their eyes fell on Phlox, who demurred. "Well, Captain, Commander, that rather depends whether they keep their radiation suits on. If they do then the dose should be survivable, but if the suits are removed or damaged then it will not be."

"Why would they remove their suits?" Archer's eyes widened as he spoke. "They were fully briefed on the radiation before the mission, why in the world would they..."

"Why in the world, indeed, Captain," Phlox replied calmly. "The 'world' in this case being Beta Cygni 3 And it's ambient radiation. The longer they are there the more the radiation will interfere with the normal functioning of their cortical synaptic pathways. Among Denobulans it is the motor cortex which is first affected, but among humans it could be the reasoning centers, the memory, it's impossible to say, and therefore impossible to know WHAT they might do. All we can do is try to get to them as soon as they can."

* * *

"You don't want to keep looking?", the shorter of the two asked. "For your Trellium?"

The other shook his head. "Nah. You're right. Nothing here but leaves and trees. And whatever is doing that shrieking."

"I saw one before. It looked like a lemur. Sort of..."

"What's a lemur?"

"I can't remember. But at the time I could and I thought it looked like a lemur."

Above them, the trees whispered.

"The trees. It's like they're laughing at us."

"Bourbon."

"What?"

" _Bourbon_."

"What's bourbon?"

"I don't know. I think the trees want it."

"If I were you, I wouldn't give it to them."

Leaves rustled.

"Does it bother you not knowing my name?"

"Not really. It bothers me more not knowing mine."

He thought for a moment. "The other one... He had his name on his uniform underneath his suit. We probably do to. We could take the suits off and look. Then at least we would know what to call each other...ourselves."

The other considered. The idea had merit. But then leaves, loosened by some disturbance above the canopy drifted slowly down to them and, for no reason at all, he changed his mind.

"Let's save that until tomorrow," he said. "The light is fading anyway."


End file.
